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“Bears Ears’ guerilla visitor center” (HCN, 5/13/19) left me puzzled. Is it meant to be a celebration or a lament?  Monuments and parks attract crowds. Crowds bring problems and damage the very things that are intended to be “preserved.” An official visitors center won’t deter those crowds, nor will it prevent the damage they will cause. Perhaps monument […]

In 1993, eight of us from Colorado first walked in the Chimayó Good Friday Pilgrimage, and we’ve come every year since.  Over the years, we’ve seen the Santuario and the area around it changed by institutional and commercial interests eager to exploit the “Chimayó” brand. Currently, the developers are held in check by the whole […]

I typically have a lot of respect for HCN’s journalism, but I think you missed the mark on the role tourism plays in New Mexico (“The Atomic Road Trip,” 5/13/19). In a state that has traditionally relied on an extraction-based economy (which is, in fact, true destruction), tourism offers rural communities a chance to highlight […]

I want to thank you for publishing Beth Pratt’s piece, “We shouldn’t celebrate the killing of a mountain lion” (HCN, 4/15/19). Mainstream media seems to always sensationalize these sorts of events and never goes back to give readers the rest of the story. Someone in my area picked up on this “danger” and wrote a […]

It broke my heart to read Gladys Connolly’s letter to the editor (HCN, 3/18/19) about Raksha Vasudevan’s essay, “Mountain biking is my act of resistance.” Vasudevan’s essay was so vulnerable and open. I, like Ms. Connolly, was surprised by the intensity of her fear. However, I experienced the essay as a window into a world […]

“Life on the gay rodeo circuit” (HCN, 3/18/19) brought back a memory: My wife and I were spending the night at the Fort Lauderdale Airport Hilton before flying home early the next day. As it happened, the Hilton was the host hotel for the big annual event of the Florida Gay Rodeo Association. As we […]

Reading Paige Blankenbuehler’s excellent exposé about the plight of the Devils Hole pupfish (“Scene of the Crime,” HCN, 4/15/19), I couldn’t stop thinking about how arbitrary and weighted toward the wealthy the American legal system is. Here you had an admittedly foolish young man who broke into a natural hot springs and accidentally killed a […]

For the last decade I’ve read almost every issue of HCN cover to cover, starting at the back cover with “Heard around the West,” but I usually just gloss through the “Editor’s Note.” Not this time: Paul Larmer’s essay on contradictions was spot-on (“Embracing contradiction,” HCN, 3/18/19). Last week, I finished teaching a 300-level environmental law […]

As a longtime subscriber to HCN, I have always appreciated your approach in illuminating all sides of an issue as a step towards resolution on clear issues like water or land. Recently, a spate of articles has asked more amorphous questions, from people looking for a sense of belonging or struggling to stay in New […]